"What might be the most worst case scenario if a company like WhatsApp or Google has my data?". This is a question that recently popped up in my campus community group. A question that many of us has come across. Privacy is a basic right everyone deserves. Just because someone can, doesn’t mean they’re allowed to invade our homes and ransack us. That’s what tech companies have been doing. Collecting any and every data they can, about us, and selling it to reap profit.
The argument that people usually put forward is “I have nothing to hide”. That is along the lines of saying that “freedom of speech doesn’t matter to me because I have got nothing to say”. Privacy is a basic right that we’re all entitled to have and we shouldn't disregard it.
In theory, a company can be collecting data to improve the app/service with usage statistics. They might also use it for ad revenue. And ad revenue means your likes and dislikes are sold to someone else for money. They may also use this data to provide us with personalized content.

Serving us personalized content is not bad per se. In fact it is useful with apps like YouTube. But this type of personalized content delivery has a lasting impact on us. We only see what we want to see. We’re being hooked up to the screens for hours because we are fed with content that entices us. In essence, we are being controlled by algorithms. You won’t sit and watch an idea contradictory to your believes for hours would you?
As an effect, our thoughts are constrained and our vision tunnelled. We may still be open to opinions but we won’t be willing to listen. To say that “I can’t be manipulated” is lame. Because you’re being manipulated and that’s why you’re in front of a screen more than anywhere else.
To a large population, social media IS the internet. They believe what they see there. So these apps/services should be held responsible for what’s going on in their platforms.
But companies like Facebook don’t go by that norm. For instance, Facebook has been called out for promoting hate speech to boost user engagement but they didn’t want to do anything about it because negativity drives engagement. There have been multiple instances of Facebook’s ‘algorithms’ being partial to particular communities or groups. The removal of the farmers' protest page being a recent example. Believe it or not, apps like Facebook can decide election results and cause havoc in countries.
They are able to do this because they have data on us more than any government does and they have absolutely no regard for our well being. The only thing that matters to such companies is profit. They’re constantly monitoring us and influencing us on everything that we do, anything that we purchase or even what friends we make.
Data is power and it isn’t supposed to be held by one conglomerate like Facebook or Google and decide the fate of humanity. We all saw what happened when Google went down for a day. That’s the power they hold on us. And it is something to be wary of.